Temeraire could not call it a satisfactory conversation, although he congratulated himself on putting an end to the threats against Laurence. The generals were not very clever at all, and whatever Laurence might say about superior officers, it seemed to Temeraire that if they were superior, then they ought to give him better orders than those he could work out for himself, not worse. Some of them had even wanted to run away, only because they did not have as many people as the French.

‘But, at least I have spoken to a fellow from the Ministry, and told him that we require voting and pay, and he did not refuse; which I think is encouraging,’ he told the others, ‘and they have been sensible enough to let us manage the Fleurde-Nuits how we like: only, now we must work out how.’

‘If we fight them here at the camp,’ Perscitia said thoughtfully, the tip of her tail flicking urgently back and forth, ‘then they must come to us to do any good, and there would be enough light from the fires to see them at least a little, and we can fight them off straightaway.’

‘They need not fight you at all, if you are above the camp,’ Laurence said. ‘They need only dart in and drop their bombs and fly away again. They are sure to hit something of value, without needing to be particular about their targets.’

‘Perhaps we should make a ring about the camp,’ Temeraire said, ‘and then if we heavyweights fly patterns back and forth, they could not come in without our noticing them, and we could catch them and teach them a good lesson; they would not long keep at it.’

‘Yes,’ Admiral Roland said, ‘and tomorrow we will have not one of you fit to fly. Napoleon will have bought a cheap advantage at the price of sending out ten dragons who are no good in the day any road. No, we can't spend so much of your strength. Tonight every last heavyweight must eat and get at once to sleep; you have already been flying more than you ought to the day before a battle.’

Unfortunately the good sense of this rather dull objection, which Temeraire would have liked to dismiss, was making itself felt in a palpable way: Requiescat was snoring noisily in his corner, even though he was supposed to be attending their conference. Even Temeraire could not deny that his mind drifted to his dinner more often than was fitting, with a battle ahead. He sighed, and acknowledged the justice of it.

‘But the little dragons cannot fight so many big, without any of us,’ he said. ‘And we will need them too, tomorrow. Otherwise Napoleon will send his little ones against us, and even though most of us have no crew to be captured, they will still tangle us.’